Monthly Archives: February 2017

NH Eliminates Concealed Carry License Requirement

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And then there are the priorities up here in New Hampshire. Please. Honestly, I’m ashamed to be a Granite Stater today.

Why? The removal of the license requirement for a hidden pistol. An odd priority. We don’t want to know who’s carrying a concealed weapon? Becuase getting a license is such a onerous burden for the poor gun owner?

Do you think I am a stupid man? It increasingly seems that you do. That’s where you’d be wrong.

Gov. Sununu: listen up. Do you remember that argument that you gun lovers are always waving in my liberal face about personal responsibility – “guns don’t kill people, people do?” I agree. I like it too. We should never blame an inanimate object for the actions of those that use it. So.. it logically follows if you don’t legalize Marijuana tomorrow, you might no longer be able to be credited with the ability to think rationally. I’m serious. If arguments work, then they work. If they don’t, they don’t. But if the argument doesn’t work; if it really is the ‘thing itself’ that does the killing – then you get rid of all your guns, and I’ll put down this blunt.

Governor, you’re an educated man. May I ask one favor, as I am a former database administrator? Take 10 minutes out of your day. Get one of your data guys to tally up a spreadsheet for you comparing Gun deaths vs. Weed deaths, last 10 years, US. Then join me back over here in the reality based world and lets make some decisions. Or give me a call explaining the flaws in my logic, and I’ll try not to die ROTFL. You can’t, and we both know it. So show some actual leadership. iIn other words, take an unpopular but logical, moral stance. We already know you have a blind willingness to pander to your base. Whoop dee doo.

Huh, I wonder …. what IS really killing Americans? Now that is a question worthy of our deep consideration. If we only had time, and if anyone cared more than they currently do. It has become painfully and distressingly obvious that the question of what IS really killing Americans is not a topic we want to reflect upon. In other contexts, this would be called ‘denial’.

I eagerly await the day when common sense returns to our rugged, flinty state. One of the reasons I moved to New Hampshire was because I believed it still existed here. That old Yankee wisdom. I was wrong.

Field Trip with the Prez

Take a look at this picture. Something about this is very wrong. Or, at least I think it is, though what do I know? I live up here in the White Mountains (and I’m not talking about the snow).

I wonder if Ben Carson (pictured, back left) is going pack his lunch every time the president attends a ‘black’ event, like his recent trip to the African American Museum in DC. Wasn’t Carson actually hired by the aforementioned World’s Best Businessman as HUD secretary, a position overseeing a 40 billion dollar budget, with a nifty salary of over $200,000 – which you and I are paying, even though he doesn’t need it, because he is already a surgeon, loaded, and living in a mansion?

Are they telling me that part of my taxes – and time from your grind today too – is going to pay for Ben Carson to take a day OFF from his job, to accompany the Prez on a photo op to a place he’s undoubtedly already been, all so the President can get some badly needed – forgive me for saying this – brownie points, with a constituency he doesn’t know and isn’t curious about, and even embarrassingly insists on referencing in the same breath as ‘Chicago’ and ‘violence’ and ‘gangs’ constantly? As they say everywhere except DC and the rust belt, puhleeeze…

Let me ask you this, Mr President: as a manager, is that the most effective use of an obviously brilliant resource when that resource has a job to do? That we’re paying him to do?

And don’t you also you also have a job to do?

If I go missing, my guess is that I tripped on reality, OD’d, stumbled Into the fire, and my head is ablaze. Darren, you’re a fireman … Trish, your son also. Please have them come and collect my body, feed Jasper, and stop at Meredith Village Savings Bank on the way home to make some arrangements, my rent’s due on the 15th. 🙂

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Ed note: I know lots of folks are stressed and don’t want to hear the political stuff. I get that, I really do. I may be an elitist (eliteness used to be a good thing), but I try not to be some snotty elitist who doesn’t listen. But in the end… sorry, can’t help you. You’re going to have to pull the trigger yourself.

First, blessed as I am in life – and I do feel blessed, every day – the loss of my wife, dad, family unity (since back), cool job, dream of being an astronaut, sanity, cat, house, and almost my rights (oops..busted) since 2010, in conjunction with my recent 60th birthday, has left me feeling …. I don’t know, unrestrained in hithertoo profound ways. And I was pretty profoundly hithertoo unrestrained before, as many of you know. Lofl. R.L.: “no, Dave, you’re not really a dick. Though sometimes you do have a dickish personality”. Mic drop.

Second, the ‘other’ side – perhaps that’s your side- won and is now in control. Got that. But don’t relax and break out the beach chairs. And I do kind of feel like there’s a lot of people sitting in their beach chairs, watching the show. But… now is when the actual reality of governing begins, and now the Winners are making arguments that are supposed to make sense, used to set policy which will determine our future. The future of our country. I believe that many of the arguments being made are extreme, simplistic, self serving, and dangerous. If you disagree with me, let’s go – let’s have at it, let’s have that discussion. But I have never before in my life believed more strongly that some things need to be said. And right now. And loudly as we can. Something about us is being lost. Time is of the essence.

One of the things that needs to be said immediately and loudly in every corner of our great land is that the practice of judging whole groups of people by color, by race, by nationality, by sexual preference, by gender, by political party, or hey, by whatever category is simply bad logic (nonsense) as well as bad morality and bad politics. It’s a simple question of random distribution, sample size, genetics, historical patterns, and probabilities. You don’t know diddly about a person, trust me, and if you do run those numbers we Yanks look as miserable as anyone.

It’s also – I believe, and I used to think – a matter of basic Christian values. If you judge folks, they are going to come back and judge you. And you may not be happy with their judgment. Loving your neighbor and working with them is a smarter, more positive, and more elite thing to do than fearing your neighbor and arming to the teeth. You’re always going to be safer with a friend than with an enemy on the other side of a wall. Heck, it’s way cheaper too. Fewer bombs, walls, guns, missing limbs.

So, more to come. Interesting times and there is no shortage of things to reflect on. But unlike our fear-filled leader, I try not to take it personally, or make it personal. I try to keep it funny and light as I can. Some topics are just not light. But I believe we are being oversold the big divide. We are still in agreement about 98% of the governing functions of America. But agreement doesn’t sell newspapers, Trump Tower suites or Mar-a-Lago memberships. Just my 2 cents, for what it’s worth.

Who’s shot is it? What color am I? 🙂

The Price of Membership

Trump ‘Member’: – for the small fee of $200,000 a year (up $100k this year), you can spend every weekend with the president at Mar-A-Lago playing golf, eating shark and lobster and watching the president solve crises like the Korean Missile Crisis in the dining room. Imagine!

Trump ‘Supporter’: – you get to buy your own $5 polyester hat, stand in line in the heat for two hours in Melbourne, FL, then swelter inside an airline hanger while the president demostrably lies to you to distract attention from the toxic mess his administration is creating in Washington. Imagine!

You decide.